Poverty campaigners have warned Humza Yousaf to come good on his promise to “eradicate poverty” during his time as First Minister.
More than 150 charities, unions and campaign groups have teamed up to write a letter to the First Minister, through a letter drafted by the Poverty Alliance, urging Mr Yousaf to put poverty reduction at the heart of his next Programme for Government (PfG) which will be unveiled in September.
Campaigners have told the Scottish Government the agenda, which sets out ministerial priorities for the year ahead, must include a minimum income guarantee, an increase in the Scottish Child Payment and a pause in pursuing people who cannot afford to pay their debts to councils and other public sector bodies.
It also urges ministers to set out how it will fund new social homes for rent in an effort to crack down on homelessness.
READ MORE: Yousaf told to turn wellbeing rhetoric into reality
The letter tells the First Minister that action is not progressing fast enough, despite Mr Yousaf pledging that every penny of future Scottish Government spending commitments would be targeted at reducing poverty.
A ministerial working group has also been launched to assess how to reverse poverty rates.
But the letter from Poverty Alliance acting director David Reilly urged the First Minister to stick to his pre-election promise of working to eradicate the injustice of poverty.
He said: “We urge you to seize the opportunity to put action to tackle poverty at the heart of the forthcoming Programme for Government.
“All of our organisations strongly welcome the development of key strategies designed to tackle poverty and inequality in Scotland. While this leadership is extremely important… this has not yet led to a meaningful reduction in overall poverty rates in Scotland.”
The Poverty Alliance have also called for free bus travel to be expanded to under-25s, people in receipt of benefits, unpaid carers and asylum seekers.
Emma Jackson, national director Scotland of Christians Against Poverty, said: “People want a just and compassionate Scotland where everyone has the opportunity to flourish and it’s possible for us to achieve this.
“We need our government to take bold, urgent action, so that every household has sufficient income to live a decent, dignified, healthy, and financially secure life.
“This includes strengthening the public services that we all rely on, but which are a lifeline for people on the lowest incomes.”
The polices recommended in the letter were drawn up by a working group of Poverty Alliance members.
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “The First Minister has made it clear that tackling poverty is a moral, social and economic imperative and it will continue to be a central mission for this Government.
READ MORE: How Scottish kids are being put into care for simply being born poor
“Modelling estimates that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of this Government’s policies which shows the clear focus we place on child poverty within our limited powers and budget.
“We will continue to take action to meet our child poverty targets and protect people from harm caused by UK Government policies and the UK cost of living crisis.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel